


The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

by sewnbythecolourofgreen



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 12:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9727847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewnbythecolourofgreen/pseuds/sewnbythecolourofgreen
Summary: It's a long way from Afghanistan to New York.Five moments from MacKenzie McHale in Washington, D.C.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Slight AU: Will and Mac worked for ACN, not CNN, during their initial relationship. 
> 
> Spoilers for 3x06.

**i. i am a visitor here/i am not permanent**

She was on the phone for an hour last night begging Jim not to take another job, telling him she would find something and take him with her.

By the end of the call she was almost in tears, and it took everything she had not to sob _please don't leave me_ into the phone.

(She still can't decide whether that impulse has more to do with Will or Brian or the look on Jim had had on his face five months ago when he saw the knife in her abdomen.)

She was asked to fly to Atlanta to be debriefed by CNN HR. She refused.

The woman on the phone was very understanding, and scheduled MacKenzie a meeting with the Human Resources division in D.C.

It's the first time she's left her apartment in three days.

The District had, unsurprisingly, changed since she was ten.

(Maybe it hasn't, maybe the only difference is now she's looking at it from the windows of dive bars instead of the Washington International School.

Or maybe the problem is that now she flinches whenever she hears a door slam.)

She appears in sweatpants and a t-shirt one of the Marines had given her as a parting gift.

CNN makes her an appointment to see a psychiatrist.

When she leaves the meeting, she notices a bowling alley on the next block.

She surfs the internet for jobs on her phone, unsuccessfully attempting to balance both a glass of Jameson and a bowling ball in her other hand.

She ends up settling for just the Jameson.

 

**ii. d.c. sleeps alone tonight**

Jim comes to her apartment at night, armed with Chinese takeout.

Audrey won't mind, he claims.

He sits with her while she picks idly at the food, pours her water instead of beer.

"Mac," he says. "I'm not going anywhere until we've sorted this out, okay?"

Her eyes are transfixed by a single piece of rice clinging to the end of her chopstick.

"It's bullshit that you can't get a job here." he continues. "Bullshit."

She shrugs.

"How'd it go with CNN HR?" he asks after a while.

"They want me to see a psychiatrist."

"I don't think it's personal." he offers. "They're sending me to one, too."

They talk a little longer (Jim talks, at least), then Audrey calls and Jim needs to go home.

MacKenzie isn't so far gone that she needs Jim to make sure she can get herself into bed, but he does leave a glass of water on her nightstand and carefully count out tomorrow's dose of Percocet for her (the pill bottle is the only thing in her kitchen cupboard).

Just before leaving, he kneels down in front of her and rolls up the bottom of her t-shirt, careful not to touch her skin. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"No infection." He says, standing up.

(She knows she's supposed to be able to check this shit herself, but she can barely stand to look at it.)

At 1 A.M. the _News Night_ re-broadcast comes on. Will's talking about tornadoes. She turns the volume down, so she can still hear the cadence of his voice but not make out the words. She tries to imagine what it would be like at the center of a tornado, everything spinning and spinning until it became one ill-defined blur with her floating in the middle of it.

It works, for a little while anyway, and she sleeps.

 

**iii. i'm barely listening/to last demands**

"How you doing, kid?"

She almost drops the bowling ball on her foot. "Charlie!" She rushes up to hug him. "I didn't know you were in town!"

"I came up to see you." He smiles. "What were you thinking, MacKenzie? Stateside three weeks and still haven't come to visit?"

"Let me buy you a drink to make up for it."

*

"How did you find me?" she asks, sipping her drink.

"Definitely not because you were answering your phone."

She grimaces. "Sorry."

"I called Jim Harper." he says, putting his glass down.

"You know Jim?"

"Never met. He called me when you were in surgery, said he remembered we skyped on your birthdays and he didn't want me getting it off a wire report."

"Well, he's a good kid."

"I called him and asked where I might find MacKenzie McHale and he said, on a weekday morning, Lucky Strike Bowling Lane with her second beer of the day."

"Yeah, well-"

"Is it safe for you to drink?"

She blinks. "Sure."

He takes a sip of his Bourbon. "How's the war wound?"

"Stiff."

"Any pain?"

"Sometimes."

"Vicodin or Percocet?"

She looks amused. "Surgery was five months ago, who says I'm still taking either of them?"

He adjusts his glass, twisting it on the coaster. "You paused when I asked if it was safe for you to drink, and then you lied to me about it."

He's not meeting her eye, but she feels like that's something he's doing for her benefit rather than his.

It's less embarrassing to talk about when it feel like no one's listening.

"Charlie,-"

"Are you sleeping much?"

She shrugs, then shakes her head, defeated. There's no point in keeping secret from him.

"Nightmares?"

She fights the urge to shrug again. "Yeah."

"You need someone to look out for you."

"Jim does that."

"You need more people."

 

**iv. i am finally seeing/that i was the one worth leaving**

"I want you to executive produce _News Night_."

MacKenzie's eyes widen, but she manages to swallow her mouthful of beer before answering. "Charlie, I love you, but I've seen the direction the show's taken since I left and we both know it's nothing I'd ever be interested in." She looks at him curiously. "Why would you even come to me with that? You knew what the answer was going to be."

His gaze doesn't waver. "You may be moping over your lost show in a bar, but I'm betting three years hasn't changed you as much as you seem to believe. What you want and what I want are still the same thing."

She snorts. "Not if what you want is what's going on your air."

"It's not. It's what Will wants."

"And you think I'm the one who can change that?"

"You're not damaged goods, MacKenzie. CNN sent you home, so what? It wasn't your fault the show was cancelled and you know that. It's time to do your job."

"I don't have a job right now, thanks for reminding me, and what I _meant_ was, what makes you think I'm going to have any more luck than Don Keefer?"

 "Will doesn't care about impressing Don."

She pauses. "You're not offering me the job in spite of my history with Will, you're offering it to me because of it."

"You're going to come back, and the two of you are going to do the show we had three years ago instead of whatever the fuck we have now."

"You can't just hit a reset button." she argues. "You had the front row seat to our breakup, do you honestly think he's ever going to want to work with me again?"

Charlie sighs. "MacKenzie, it's been three years since you walked out on him and I don't think anything between people that loved each other as much as you two did is irreparable but on the off-chance I'm wrong, I still don't think you need to like each other to bring out the best in each other."

Her laugh is hollow. " _I_ walked out on _him_?" She stares at him for a moment. "God, he still hasn't told you what happened, has he?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, it's just... you've got it wrong. I could never walk out on him." She's quiet for a moment. "He hasn't returned any of my calls or emails or letters since I left. I don't think he's interested in what I think."

"That may be the only thing he's interested in." Charlie stands up. "The offer's on the table. Take a few days to think and give me a call. Better yet, come down and tell me in person." He smiles gently at her. "We really could have used you these last couple of years, you know."

 

**v. a stranger with a door key**

"It's MacKenzie, let me up."  Jim eyes her suspiciously as he explains the departure of both Audrey and his furniture. She's dressed, she's wearing makeup, and it looks like she's gotten a haircut.

She looks like a different person. Or the same person, a year or two ago.

"I'm taking over _News Night_ as Executive Producer and I want you to come with me and be our Senior Producer."

He opens the fridge, holding up a beer for her in a silent question, and she shakes her head. "Are you doing cleanup after what happened at Northwestern?"

"I don't think it needs cleaning up. We're just going to start over." She continues talking a mile a minute about her plans for the show, and he can't help but stare. In the time it takes him to get the cap off his beer he's already heard her speak more than in the past three weeks combined.

He hasn't seen her like this in a long time, and he can't quite pinpoint when. (Definitely not since the day he watched her rushed into surgery, her BlackBerry pressed to his ear as he called her parents with hands still warm and sticky with her blood.)

(Maybe not for a while before that, the more he thinks about it.)

He tries to banish those images from his mind.

"Charlie Skinner's on some kind of mission. He's dead serious. He messengered a book to me."

He's trying to not tear her down, not when she's more alive than he's seen her in ages, but she's putting an awful lot of trust in Will McAvoy.

(Third on the list of phone calls Jim Harper made after the stabbing. Voicemail after two rings. Message never returned.)

(Not that she knew any of that.)

"So, what was the book?"

As she pulls a copy of Don Quixote out of her bag, he catches her eye, and he knows it.

He's seen that look before.

She's back.

**Author's Note:**

> My first Newsroom fic! 
> 
> I was kind of dissapointed when I realized Will and Mac had worked for CNN and not ACN the first time around- so I decided to write it my way :) (If you squint, I suppose the fact that young Mac lived in Washington and not NY is AU as well)
> 
> If you got this far and feel so inclined as to leave a comment or kudos, I would really appreciate it.


End file.
